{"id":264494,"date":"2025-11-01T07:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/264494\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T07:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:39:10","slug":"more-than-50-years-on-the-exorcist-still-possesses-the-united-states-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/264494\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 50 years on, The Exorcist still possesses the United States \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Memories of The Exorcist still possess the imagination and autumn pattern of Washington DC<\/a>\u2019s Georgetown University set more than 50 years on. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, the annual Halloween showing of William Friedkin<\/a>\u2019s horror film masterpiece took place on the lawn outside. And when the students don their Halloween Night gothic costumes, they have a timeless set in Healy Hall and the famous \u201cExorcist Steps as Insta\u201d props. <\/p>\n

Tucked away at the far corner of Georgetown\u2019s boutique and eatery scene, the run of 75 narrow steps cutting between two austere brick walls to form a steep, daunting connection between Prospect Corner and 36th NW are worth the trek. <\/p>\n

A friend visiting in late summer was adamant: your Lincoln Memorial and White House and Ford Theatre were all very well, but there was no way he was leaving without visiting the steps which Fr Damien Karras made famous at the climax of the film.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t alone. The Exorcist Steps have become one of the more unlikely tourist attractions in a city teeming with them, a tribute to the enduring power of the film as much as the unusual architecture.<\/p>\n

And Georgetown can claim a central role in a film which, upon its release in 1973, caused a genuine sensation across the United States. The origins of the story lay in the chance reading of an article in The Washington Post by William Peter Blatty, an English major at the university in 1949, about a real exorcism performed on a 14-year-old boy, named only as \u2018Roland Doe\u2019, in nearby Cottage City, Maryland. <\/p>\n

Blatty never forgot the story and although primarily a screenwriter, he ended up turning the genesis of the story into a novel in which a young girl is possessed in a house near his alma mater. Within two years, Friedkin, just after an Oscar success with The French Connection, was on campus. Healy Hall, Georgetown\u2019s magisterial centrepiece, features prominently and Friedkin made ingenious use of those steps.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam Friedkin at the steps where he filmed The Exorcist\u2019s climatic scene. Photograph: Gabriella Demczuk\/New York Times <\/p>\n

It is hard, in this age of relentless content, to summon up a full picture of the welter of anticipation, shock and controversy which The Exorcist caused prior to and after its release. Reports of a spooked set \u2013 an injured carpenter and unsettling events in the production \u2013 gave the project unrivalled advance publicity. <\/p>\n

People waited in line for hours in perishing weather to get into cinemas when it was released on December 26th, 1973. The film was genuinely terrifying and reports of the audience fainting, retching and disturbed by the story quickly became legend. It cost $12 million (\u20ac10.4 million) and earned Warner Bros $441 million worldwide within a year.<\/p>\n

As a work of art, The Exorcist deeply split opinion. Pauline Kael, then unrivalled in film reviewing, loathed it. <\/p>\n

Castigating the gore and \u201cferocious language\u201d which is spewed in tandem with spectacular bouts of vivid-green puking by young Regan, she noted the \u201cpossible complainers\u201d \u2013 the Catholic Church \u2013 would look elsewhere given the central role of the Jesuit college in the film. \u201cBesides, the Catholic Church is hardly likely to be upset by the language or actions in a film that says that the Catholic Church is the true faith, feared by the Devil, and that its rituals can exorcise demons,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Quentin Tarantino<\/a> was among the young Americans hypnotised by the film when it was released. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just a horror film in \u201973 when it came out,\u201d he said a few years ago. \u201cYou were experiencing the devil.\u201d<\/p>\n

He considered it as \u201ckind of a perfect movie\u201d and said \u201cits biggest achievement isn\u2019t in convincing you the devil exists, its [in] convincing you that Catholicism could handle it if it did\u201d.<\/p>\n

In that sense, the supernatural power which The Exorcist held over the United States of 50 years ago reflects a kind of collective naivety and the central role of religion then in everyday life. <\/p>\n

The year 1973 was a restless one there: the suspension of US involvement in Vietnam<\/a>, the onset of a recession and a fuel crisis, the death of Lyndon B Johnson, the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v Wade<\/a> and in Washington a brewing crisis involving a building named Watergate.<\/p>\n

Cinema was a collective escapism and The Exorcist a shocking reminder that whatever your problems, they could be worse. <\/p>\n

\"TouristsTourists pose on the steps made famous by The Exorcist. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/Getty <\/p>\n

Friedkin turned up in Washington in 2015 when DC mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled a plaque honouring the steps as a cultural landmark. By then, The Exorcist was regarded as a horror masterpiece.<\/p>\n

While Washington is acclaimed for its spring blossoms, this is the time of the year most suited to its soul. The leaves are everywhere, and it\u2019s mostly dry and turning cold and the twilight comes early. When the street lights come on in the more gorgeous historic neighbourhoods, the Halloween displays are something to behold. And there will be likely be several Regan MacNeil masks and Fr Karras costumes for Halloween celebrations. <\/p>\n

As for Roland Doe, who started the entire commotion in the late 1940s: he mercifully recovered from his alleged brush with Satan. <\/p>\n

In 2021, it emerged that Doe, whose real name was Ronald Edward Hunkeler, had died just the previous year, aged 85, after a distinguished career as a Nasa<\/a> engineer. He had spent his life fearful that his teenage brush with the paranormal would be exposed. <\/p>\n

Speculation varied as to whether he had been a prankster supreme or, as the trailer for the film that terrified the US announced, he became caught up in \u201csomething beyond comprehension\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Memories of The Exorcist still possess the imagination and autumn pattern of Washington DC\u2019s Georgetown University set more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,142219,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-264494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-the-exorcist","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-united-states-of-america","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}